AGNI - Number 59

First, the time has come with this magazine to praise Sven Birkerts as an editor. He’s a ferociously intelligent author (most recently of My Sky Blue Trades), and he took the helm of Agni three issues ago, initiating his run with what was one of the single best printed journals of last year, Agni 57. It’s rare for literary journals to be known by their editors: Plimpton of course comes to mind, and Bradford Morrow at Conjunctions, and to this list we can gladly add Birkerts. Three issues in and his skills as editor are broadening wonderfully, with one of the more startling stories in recent memory, “What About the Gun?” by Joan Wickersham, a fantastic trio of poems from Edip Cansever, and strange, evocative art by Arno Rafael Minkkinen. Add to all that some usual suspects: Dan Chiasson, Donald Hall, Martha Cooley, John Kinsella, and this Agni, like the rest from the steady, exploratory hand of Sven Birkerts (and company, of course), is fasntastic. [Agni, 236 Bay State Road, Boston MA 02215. E-mail: . Single issue $10. http://www.bu.edu/agni/] - WC